The Presence Read online

  David looked down his nose at her. “My dear, Toni! We know that you’re solidly infatuated with the man. But let me ask you this. If he’s so rich, why does he own a ramshackle castle?”

  She sighed. “You two, it’s just silly to be so worried about this guy. All right, let me fill you all in on something, having to do with the state of the castle. He was engaged once to a woman who was in love with the place. It was her dream to fix it up again, make it magnificent. She died, and he lost heart. And that’s why he’s ignored it. It’s probably why he still spends so much time out of the area, even out of the country.”

  “It sounds…reasonable,” Gina said.

  “Oh, yeah, I just about hear violins,” Ryan murmured.

  “Hey! That borders on the entirely insensitive!” David protested.

  “How do we really know anything around here, though, especially when it comes to our host?” Gina murmured.

  Kevin glanced at David and then at Toni. “You’ve got to admit, we really don’t know much of anything. And then…well, you do see the guy with a sword in your nightmares.”

  Toni instantly stared at David. “You—you traitor! You weren’t supposed to say anything about things I told you in confidence.”

  “I didn’t! Well, of course, I talk to Kevin. Especially when I’m really worried about you!” David said, defending himself.

  She groaned.

  “Now I really don’t know what any of you are talking about!” Gina exclaimed.

  Toni groaned again, laying her head on the table.

  “Somebody better tell us,” Ryan said.

  Toni lifted her head, not about to let David do her explaining. “I’ve had some nightmares, very real nightmares, about the legendary Bruce coming back and standing at the foot of my bed with a sword, okay?” She glared at David. She didn’t want anything else about her past spread any further than it had already gone.

  “And see, there’s the thing. Thayer told us about the old woman in the cemetery the other day,” Kevin said softly.

  “Now Thayer has a mouth on him, too!” Toni muttered.

  “Oh, yeah! That’s right!” Ryan said. He looked at Gina. “Remember? He was talking about how he and Toni had just met Lizzie and Trish, and then this weird old bat comes in with her son and daughter-in-law, and rambles about the old Bruce being up from his grave, running around the countryside, finding women and strangling them as he had his wife.”

  “Dammit!” Toni said. “We know now that the old Bruce didn’t strangle his wife, one of his enemies did it.”

  “We don’t know that for a fact,” David said softly.

  “Right. Before he gets chopped to minced meat himself, he asks his executioners for a woolen scarf so that he can kill her first?” Toni said sarcastically.

  “No, but maybe he stole his enemy’s scarf.”

  Toni threw her hands up. “You’re being ridiculous,” she told them. “I can’t listen to this anymore!”

  “Toni!” David said. “I’m sorry, honestly! I’m just afraid for you, that’s all. Maybe you don’t have to…to sleep with him. Well, sleep with him, but don’t sleep with him. Not until we find out a little more about him.”

  She shook her head with disgust and exited the kitchen.

  Bruce wound up staying far later than he had in tended at Darrow’s office; it was impossible not to do so. With a full team in tiny Tillingham, fascinated with the discovery of Annalise and armed with modern technology, he found himself involved. He looked at half a dozen scans, and was there when they painstakingly removed the ligature from around the throat of the remains. The scientists were fascinated with the quality of the weave; he couldn’t help but remain pleased with the evidence suggesting that his ancestor had not been the one to murder his wife.

  When he returned to the castle, it was afternoon. He looked in the kitchen and found David and Kevin working on costumes. They looked at him like a pair of cats that had just filled up on canaries. But when he questioned them, they both said that they were fine—a little too quickly—and went back to work, telling him that Ryan was probably out on Wallace somewhere and Gina was upstairs working with the numbers to find out just what it would take to get them out of the hole. Neither of them had seen either Thayer or Toni for hours.

  He couldn’t find Toni upstairs, so he headed out to the stables. Shaunessy greeted him with a whinny.

  He heard someone working above him and backed away, trying to see who was in the rafters. Eban was there, studiously working hay piles.

  “Ah, Laird MacNiall!”

  With a smile, the funny little man dropped his rake and came down the ladder. He was agile and quick, dropping the last few feet as easily as a monkey.

  “Afternoon, Eban,” Bruce said.

  Eban gave him a gamine’s grin. “The roan is doing fine. I bin keepin’ an eye on him, now, I’ave.”

  “Thank you, Eban.”

  “I bin thinking, y’see, that someone is walkin’ round,” Eban said gravely.

  “Walking around?”

  “There’s them that say it’s yer ancestor. Y’know, the MacNiall.”

  Bruce exhaled with patience. “Ah, Eban! The dead don’t walk around.”

  “And they don’t go making a healthy roan sick, either, so they’d say!” Eban muttered, shaking his head. “There’s someone walkin’, and that’s a fact.”

  He set a hand on the man’s shoulders. “Myth, Eban. Legend. Good stories for a dark night. If the MacNiall were about, don’t you think he’d be pleased to see his castle so well tended?”

  “As y’should ha’ tended it all these years.”

  “Aye, Eban. True.”

  “She sees him, too, y’know. ’Tisn’t just me, Laird MacNiall.”

  “She?” he asked.

  Eban nodded gravely. “The lass, the American lass. A fellow such as me, I see it, I do. I see it in her eyes. She be one of the ‘touched.’”

  “Eban, you know I don’t believe all that.”

  Eban grinned. “Believe or nae, what is, is. Anyway, I just wanted y’to know, the roan will be well. I’m watchin’ now, I am.”

  “Thank you, Eban. You do good work.”

  “Ach, Laird MacNiall! Like the days of old. Y’give me a home. A place. Others might not ha’ been so kind. And I know it.” With his strange little smile in place, he started back for the ladder. “’Tis like the days of old. Whether the eyes see or not, what is, is,” he said, shaking his head as he went back up to the rafters.

  A noise at the door alerted Bruce to the fact that someone was coming into the stables. He turned quickly. Thayer.

  He felt his mouth tighten and his muscles tense. He might have refused to let Jonathan see any of his concerns regarding the man, but he felt them, just as he had from the beginning. He didn’t think it was ego to wonder how the man could have lived in Glasgow and never heard his name—or known that he existed. And if he had been living with his head in a pint, he should still have known something once he heard the name of the property his group was renting.

  “Bruce, you’re back,” Thayer said.

  “Aye.”

  Thayer looked uncomfortable. He hadn’t expected to come here and find his host.

  “Well, I was just going to look in on the roan,” Thayer said.

  “He isn’t here. Ryan must have taken him out. But actually, I’m glad you’ve come. I’ve gotten some news. I thought I should share it with you first.” He meant to take grave care with just what words and what information he “shared.”

  “Oh, aye?” Thayer said carefully, hovering in the doorway, as if he could make a quick escape.

  “They’ve traced the origins of the Web site that advertised this castle,” Bruce said.

  “Aye?”

  The man looked as tense as a drawn bow.

  “Glasgow.”

  “Glasgow?”

  Bruce nodded, watching the man.

  Thayer shrugged. “Well, then. That would explain a bit of it.”
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  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, there were advertisements about, as well. Flyers in a few local pubs, you know, like broadsides on walls, at bus stops, I think.”

  “Ah,” Bruce said.

  “I’m glad. I hope like bloody hell they catch the bloke,” Thayer said, staring straight at Bruce.

  Actors. It was a crowd of actors, Bruce told himself.

  Thayer frowned suddenly. “Ryan isn’t out with the horse,” he said. “At least, I don’t think, anyway. I saw him upstairs in his room, talking with his wife, not twenty minutes past.”

  “The horse is gone,” Bruce said, frowning, as well. Then he realized that Toni had the horse out, and an un reasoning sense of panic set into him.

  Thayer, too, seemed alarmed for reasons of his own. “Toni!” he said.

  “I’ll find her,” Bruce told him, already turning to lead Shaunessy from his stall.

  With landscape and terrain this beautiful, Toni wasn’t sure why she hadn’t been out riding before now.

  One benefit to growing up in rural Maryland had been the little pinto her father had bought her. But as an adult working in the city, she’d had to leave Barto, now twenty-two, with her old neighbors. It was good for Barto, though. He was hardly ever saddled, was loved like an old dog, and given the best of everything.

  She seldom saw him, and with the move to Scotland, she had given up the idea of ownership altogether, and given him to the Andersons’ granddaughter. He was a gentle soul by then, just right for a child, as she had been.

  Wallace was definitely a fine fellow, heavy enough for Ryan with his armor and weapons, and still sleek enough for a good ride. Whatever had ailed him, his recovery had been all but miraculous. He wasn’t just glad to be out; he was feeling his oats.

  Her mood had been angry and wild, so she hadn’t bothered with a saddle. She’d just slipped the bit into his mouth, the bridle over his head, and chosen a path down the hill. There was plenty of countryside. Beautiful spaces. They passed slope after slope, scattering a few sheep as they raced along, but the longhaired cows they passed didn’t seem to mind.

  She wasn’t sure how far she’d gone when she noticed that a white car marked Tillingham Constabulary was parked by a fence. Curious, she rode in that direction, and saw Jonathan out in the field. He appeared to be inspecting one of the sheep.

  Nudging Wallace, she rode down the little slope that led to the valley where the car was parked. Jonathan heard the horse, looked up, released the sheep and dusted his hands on his uniform pants as he walked toward the fence, calling out a cheerful greeting. “Aye, now, lass, good t’see you. That is the way to really enjoy this countryside,” he told her.

  “Hello! And, yes, it’s really beautiful. How are you?” she asked him.

  “Well and fine enough, Miss Fraser. So…all is working well for you? Your friends were in, you know. And though I’ve not the resources of the big department, we are working hard for you, through the folks that know their business. I just told Bruce this morning, they’ve traced the site on the Web page to Glasgow.”

  “Really? I haven’t seen Bruce today,” she told him. “Glasgow,” she repeated. “I’m delighted, naturally, and grateful that they’ve traced it so far already, but I suppose they’ll need to learn much more to actually catch someone.”

  “Aye, Glasgow,” he said. She thought that he was looking at her strangely, as if that should mean something.

  “It’s a very big city,” she murmured.

  “Aye, that it is.” He was still staring at her strangely.

  “I’m sorry, should that fact mean something to me?” she asked him.

  “Your cousin is from Glasgow,” he reminded her.

  She instantly felt defensive bristles grow up around her. “It’s a very big city,” she reminded him.

  What was it today? Was there something in the water? People attacking everyone who meant something to her?

  “You’re right,” he acknowledged. “A very big city. I just thought that you wanted the truth. No matter what the truth may be.”

  “We do want the truth. Sorry, I didn’t mean to bark. But I don’t think the fact that something originated in Glasgow is any aspersion on Thayer at all. That would be like me being guilty of something because it happened near Washington, D.C.”

  “D.C. is much bigger than Glasgow,” he said with a rueful grin.

  “Still the point,” she said.

  “And well taken,” he told her gravely.

  “Well, I do thank you. Very much.”

  “You’re quite welcome, but it is my job to uphold the law, even if it falls into unfamiliar realms. We’ve good police here in the old country, y’know. I feel somewhat guilty, I do. I should have known, before your group put the work into the place, that he’d have never rented out the place. But then, he hadna’ been about himself for some time, so…it would be his right to do it, had he chosen.”

  “Please, there’s nothing for you to feel guilty about. And actually, he’s been quite wonderful.”

  Jonathan glanced down. “Oh, aye, the fellow is…magnanimous, isn’t he?” he queried, looking back up at her.

  She nodded, not wanting to go any further in that vein. “Are these your sheep?”

  “Aye, that they are.”

  “You’ve beautiful land.”

  “Well, quite frankly, it’s not my land. But I pasture here. Heard there’s been some trouble with that roan there, but he looks fine to me. I thought I’d be wise to take a look at these fellows and lasses, assure myself nothing was getting into the herds.”

  “He’s fine. The vet said he must have gotten into something, but he’s come through just great. Like a little boy with a bellyache who’d eaten too much candy, I guess,” Toni said.

  “Well, you’re right, must have been something… Anyway, the sheep look fine and healthy, too, lass. I guess I’d best be getting back into town.”

  “It was nice to see you!” Toni told him.

  “Enjoy your ride!” He waved and started toward his car. Toni headed Wallace back up a slope. He seemed to want to run again.

  She let him do so, mulling over her encounter with the constable. On the one hand, it seemed that he did want to do what he could for them. But on the other hand…he seemed more concerned with how their business affected him. The foreigners have a sick horse, so he checks his sheep?

  Then, of course, there was that ridiculous conversation she’d had with the others back at the castle, and…there was the ghost. A ghost that should be happy now! A ghost who kept appearing at the foot of her bed.

  She leaned low against Wallace, and let the wind rip by her. She wanted not to think for a while.

  She didn’t know how long she traveled the hills and valleys before she realized that, even if Wallace was feeling frisky, she might well be pushing him too hard. After all, they’d had to send for a vet to see him twice in the past week. Patting his neck, she slowed him down, leaped off for a moment and came around to take a good look at his eyes.

  He stared back at her and snorted, sending a sneeze and some mouth foam flying over her. “Wallace!” she chastised him. “Ugh! How could you do that to me? There are times when you should do it to Ryan, but I’m your friend. I think I am, anyway. You need a drink. Well, we should walk a bit and then get you a drink.”

  She looked around, trying to ascertain where she was, then wondering how on earth she could have turned herself around so badly. Although she could still see sheep, there was no sign of a house, a cottage or even a road.

  Listening, though, she could hear the bubble of a brook. It was to the right, through a field of trees—and the path—a great canopy of trees arced over pine needles—looked inviting. “We’ll wander in and find the water, eh, boy?” she asked, rubbing his nose.

  As he tended to do—with true love and affection, she was certain—he nosed her in the chest, gently prodding her, as if he understood her words.

  Plenty of light dappled through the
trees. The shadows and patterns that fell around the trees and bushes were quite beautiful. The trails seemed broad and well used, yet when she followed the sound of the water and came to it at last, she felt like a fool.

  “You know what? We’re back in the forest.”

  It was all right. She definitely hadn’t come that far, walking the horse. All she had to do was retrace her steps. She wasn’t frightened, and she wasn’t even worried. When Wallace had drunk his fill, she’d start back. But just when the horse lifted his head, the rain came.

  “Son of a bitch!” she swore out loud, drawing a snort from Wallace.

  It wasn’t the rain. She didn’t care much about getting wet. But the air was cold, and she hadn’t set out with any kind of jacket, waterproof or otherwise.

  “You know, it rains a lot here!” she told the horse, angry with herself for not being better prepared. But she’d left the house angry and disturbed, and decided on taking a ride on the spur of the moment.

  In seconds, she was soaked. And what had been light and beautiful was now gray and…murky.

  She determined to go back the way she had come. It should have been easy, but it wasn’t. In a matter of minutes, she was entangled in the trees.

  She looked at Wallace. Surely, it was close to feeding time. If she just gave the horse his head, he’d take her home.

  “It’s up to you, buddy,” she said.

  By the time she had leaped up on his back, making three attempts—because of the slickness, she told herself, not a lack of coordination—the rain had slackened. But the gray and the murk remained, and there was a low ground fog, as well. The whole atmosphere was…creepy.

  “No!” she said aloud. Because now, she was feeling the eyes again, the eyes of the forest, watching her.

  “Home, Wallace!” she said out loud, hoping the words would dispel the sense of eeriness that had crept around her. She was being ridiculous. These were trees, for God’s sake! Trees, bushes, natural bark, leaves, the sound of rushing water….

  Given free rein, Wallace simply stood dead still.

  “Traitor!” she told him.

  He whinnied and shifted weight from hoof to hoof.

  “What kind of a horse are you? You’re supposed to know the way back to the barn!”